Black Horizon (Jack Swyteck Novel)

by Grippando, James

  “Then you know that the oil companies say that Jack’s client wasn’t married to the Cuban oil worker who was killed in the explosion. Jack was in Havana trying to prove them wrong. He and Theo rented an apartment, totally on the up and up.”

  Andie needed to catch her breath. “That’s much better than what it was starting to sound like, but you do understand that the kidnapping is not our only problem here?”

  “What do you mean?” said Harry.

  The chief of staff interjected. “I think what Andie is alluding to is that at some point we will have to deal with the fact that if Jack was doing investigative work in Cuba, that’s a violation of the trade embargo, even if Jack is of Cuban descent.”

  “Which is a minor problem compared to the kidnapping,” said Andie.

  “Hell, yes, it’s minor,” said Harry, obviously annoyed.

  “Harry, listen to what I’m saying,” said Andie. “I’m sure what you meant to say is that Jack was in Cuba visiting relatives. When you speak to anyone in law enforcement about the kidnapping, I know you will make that clear. Nothing more needs to be said about this issue. Then we can focus all our energy on getting Jack back safely, which is what we all want.”

  Harry paused, digesting her advice. “Understood,” he said.

  The chief of staff steered him back to the immediate problem. “Harry, tell her about the note.”

  “Right,” said Harry. “The kidnapper broke into the apartment, drugged them, and took them back to a basement somewhere in Havana. When he released Theo this morning, he gave him a ransom note and told him to deliver it to me. The note is in Jack’s handwriting.”

  “A common practice,” said Andie. “Proof to the family that the victim is still alive. Was it checked for prints?”

  “Yes, I called the FBI immediately. Jack’s prints were on it. Others couldn’t be identified.”

  “Okay, good that the FBI is on it. But did the note have any kind of warning not to contact law enforcement?”

  “Quite the opposite,” said Harry. “That’s why I’m here tonight.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The ransom note lays out just one condition for Jack’s release: if I deliver the note to the White House, Jack will be released, unharmed. The note even specifies the proof of delivery: an independent news organization must run a photograph of me meeting with the White House chief of staff.”

  Andie considered it. “It’s actually not uncommon for kidnappers to ask to speak to the president or to have a message delivered to the White House. Usually it’s an act of desperation, or someone with a screw loose. Or both.”

  “This may be different,” said Harry. “The kidnapper knows that Jack is the son of a former governor with political connections. Since the note mentions the White House chief of staff by name, he probably got Jack to tell him who my closest personal contact is in the White House. Jim and I go back twenty-five years.”

  Murphy said, “I lean toward Andie’s first impression. I think it’s a nut-job.”

  “What does he want the White House to do?” asked Andie.

  “Pay him money.”

  “But the note says he will release Jack if Harry delivers the note to the White House. So pay him money for what?”

  Harry and the chief exchanged glances, and Harry answered. “He claims to know the ‘real story’ behind the Cuban oil spill. Obviously he thinks that’s the kind of information that the White House would be willing to pay for.”

  “Obviously he doesn’t know my reputation for fiscal responsibility,” said Murphy.

  “Jim’s the kind of guy who once saw a GAO pen on the counter at a bank and brought it back,” Harry said for Andie’s benefit.

  “Can I see the note?” asked Andie.

  The chief of staff rose and retrieved the copy from his desk. Andie read it carefully, in its entirety, focusing in particular on the final two lines:

  Scarborough 8 was sabotage. I know who did it.

  Pay my price and you will know too.

  The note had no signature, at least not in the conventional sense. Instead there was a number sequence: 3/6/11/17/9/42.

  “What do the numbers mean?” asked Andie.

  “We don’t know,” said Harry.

  “Is anyone looking into it?”

  “Yes, of course,” said the chief of staff. “But getting back to your original point about a nut-job, the numbers could be utterly meaningless.”

  “Meaningless? Really?”

  “Granted, I’m not one to dismiss numbers easily,” said Murphy. “Heck, I can’t even walk into a White House banquet without trying to guess exactly how many people are in the room. But I call it as I see it.”

  Harry took a deep breath. “Jim, with all due respect, I think you’re too quick to dismiss this as the work of a lunatic.”

  “I’m not trying to minimize the danger to your son,” he said. “My point is that anyone who sends a letter like this to the White House has zero credibility in my eyes. The minute the Scarborough 8 went up in flames, the crazies started coming out of the woodwork. Two days ago we got a letter saying that the Cuban government will allow the United States to assist in the cleanup only if Bill Gates wires a hundred million dollars to a Swiss bank account and the Castro brothers are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. It was ‘signed,’” he said, making air quotes, “by Fidel Castro.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” said Harry.

  “I don’t see any difference.”

  “Andie, what do you think?” asked Harry.

  Andie paused, thinking. Rather than discredit the kidnapper, the note’s reference to sabotage actually enhanced his credibility, at least in Andie’s eyes. Her entire undercover operation was premised on the theory that the cause of the explosion and spill was sabotage. It was possible that the kidnapper was a nut-job—but only if he had made one very lucky guess about causation. Unfortunately, she was sworn to secrecy about Operation Black Horizon, and it didn’t matter that she was sitting in the White House with the chief of staff and her father-in-law.

  “Mr. Murphy, may I use your phone?”

  “Of course.”

  “Who you calling?” asked Harry.

  “Headquarters,” said Andie. “I need permission to tell you what I think.”

  Chapter 26

  Monday morning brought cloudless blue skies. From a window seat at twenty-two thousand feet, Jack had an unimpeded view of the black stain on the Florida Straits.

  Jack’s kidnapper had held true to his word. A White House–issued photograph of Harry Swyteck in the West Wing with the president’s chief of staff had done the trick. Within hours, it was all over the World Wide Web. The only news story running with the photograph was of a former governor conveying to the administration his “grave concerns” about the oil spill’s potential impact on his beloved state. Jack wasn’t sure if it was the FBI or the White House that wanted to keep his kidnapping out of the media. Either way, the photograph was enough to satisfy Jack’s captor that the ransom note had been delivered.

  It’s heading straight for the Keys.

  Jack could not turn his gaze away from the window. While in Cuba, even before the kidnapping, Jack had lost track of the spill’s movement. The last reliable reports Jack had seen were Thursday’s OAS projections, which three days later were coming true: The spill was on a northeasterly track, with Florida directly in its sights. Key West, it seemed, might actually dodge the bullet. But to Jack’s untrained eye, it looked as though the upper Keys and the southeast coast of mainland Florida needed to prepare for the unthinkable. Viewed from an airplane, the problem was obvious. The front line of U.S. containment efforts began at the outer reach of Cuban waters. By that point the disaster had already fanned out from the source and spread across the surface in a black cone of unmanageable breadth. The early warnings of the experts that Jack had watched on television from his honeymoon suite at Big Palm Island were coming true. Chemical dispersants were less effective on
oil after it was a full day or more from the source of the spill. Treatment within hours, near the faucet, was crucial to the relief effort.

  Sabotage. The word had been echoing in Jack’s brain ever since his kidnapper had forced him to write his own ransom note: Scarborough 8 was sabotage. Jack had come face-to-face with evil before, from convicted killers on death row to accused terrorists at Guantánamo Bay, but it was hard for him to construct even a loose psychological profile of the beast behind this work.

  “It’s all a big conspiracy, you know,” said the old man seated next to him.

  “Excuse me?” said Jack.

  He gestured toward the window. “The spill. It’s a White House conspiracy with Big Oil.”

  Jack should have simply nodded and turned away, but the old man seemed so sincere that Jack stayed with the conversation. “Why do you say that?”

  “Just look at the facts. We have a president who took millions of dollars in campaign contributions from Big Oil. The oil companies are all licking their chops to drill for oil in Cuban waters, but the president can’t get Congress to end the trade embargo without his entire party committing political suicide in Florida. Along comes a convenient oil disaster that the White House can point to and say, ‘See, if we allowed U.S. oil companies to drill in Cuba, we wouldn’t be at the mercy of the Cuban government and a consortium of Chinese, Russians, and Venezuelans.’ Smells like a conspiracy to me.”

  “So you’re saying that the White House conspired with the oil companies to blow up the Scarborough 8?”

  The man shrugged, not with confusion, but as if the answer were obvious. “Look at what they did to the World Trade Center on nine-eleven.”

  It was a sensational theory straight out of the “infotainment mill”—enough to make Jack wonder, albeit only for a moment, if there wasn’t at least one advantage to sanitized Cuban television.

  The oil spill disappeared from view, and Jack closed his eyes to rest. Before long, the overhead speakers crackled with the flight attendant’s announcement of their preparation for landing. It was a slow and gradual descent, and touchdown was just before noon. Law enforcement was waiting for Jack as he entered the international terminal. Two FBI agents escorted him through immigration and led him to a windowless room in which, over the years, several of Jack’s clients had been poked, probed, and otherwise examined. A psychiatrist was on hand for his counseling needs, as in any kidnapping case. There was only one person Jack wanted to talk to.

  “Is my wife here?”

  The supervisory agent spoke for the FBI. Agent Linton was a tall ex-Marine type with a hint of a Jamaican accent. “Henning wanted to fly down, but it was the Bureau’s judgment that stepping that far out of her role could jeopardize the operation.”

  Jack was disappointed but not surprised.

  “She did ask me to give you this letter,” Linton added.

  Jack took it and read it to himself. It gave him the assurances he’d wanted—that she was doing fine, and that he shouldn’t worry about her or the baby. The final paragraph made him smile—how sorry she was about the honeymoon, and how she was going to make it up to him. When he was finished, Agent Linton steered him toward a chair.

  “We have some questions, of course,” said Linton.

  “No problem,” said Jack.

  The agents sat on one side of a small rectangular table, with Jack on the other. He told them everything, from the suspected Russians who had followed him and Theo on their way to the airport on Saturday afternoon, to his ultimate release on Sunday morning. Eventually the focus turned exclusively to the kidnapper. Jack told them about the eye tattoo just below his wrist. But even more than distinguishing physical characteristics, the FBI seemed interested in evidence of his technical expertise. Jack gave the question careful consideration before answering.

  “I can’t say that he comes across as some kind of computer genius,” said Jack. “But he did use what seemed like a medical app for mutes to speak to me. It disguised his voice. Whenever he wanted to say something to me, he typed it into his phone. Then I’d hear Siri’s voice.”

  “Smart,” said the agent. “Did he use that to construct the ransom note?”

  “Yes. It was highly scripted. He was on the phone beforehand. I think he was speaking Spanish.”

  “That certainly narrows down the list of suspects, seeing as how you were kidnapped in Cuba.”

  “My point is that I think someone was telling him what needed to be in my note.”

  “So you think he was taking directions from someone on the phone?”

  “Possibly,” said Jack. “On the other hand, I’ve met at least half a dozen death row inmates who have had absolutely delightful conversations on the telephone even though no one was on the line.”

  Linton didn’t crack a smile. “Did your kidnapper seem delusional to you?”

  “No more than he seemed like a computer expert.”

  “The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “Agreed. But I’m curious: why are you so focused on his computer savvy?”

  The agent hesitated. “I’m sorry, but we can’t get into that with you.”

  “Why not?”

  “Information on that subject is shared only on a need-to-know basis. There’s no need for you to know.”

  Jack was undeterred. “Sabotage is a word that has been playing in my head ever since I was ordered at gunpoint to write it into the ransom note. Could it be that the FBI suspects computer sabotage as the cause of the explosion?”

  “Sorry, Mr. Swyteck. Can’t discuss it.”

  Jack wasn’t one to sensationalize, but the words of that old man on the airplane were suddenly replaying in his head—the theory that Jack had dismissed as entertainment news babble: “It’s a White House conspiracy with Big Oil.”

  “I’m seeing a pattern here,” said Jack. “First came the strict order to keep the kidnapping out of the news. Now you won’t even share information with me—the victim.”

  “Those barriers are sometimes necessary in a criminal investigation.”

  “Sometimes,” said Jack. “But I’m starting to wonder if the firewalls are being put up by the FBI, strictly for reasons related to law enforcement. Or by the White House, for some other reasons.”

  More silence.

  There was a knock on the door. The agents seemed surprised, even annoyed, but when the door opened, the intrusion was more than welcome. Harry Swyteck was just off a plane from Washington. He rushed straight to Jack, who could feel the sense of relief in his father’s long embrace. Pools of emotion welled in the older man’s eyes, and at Harry’s request, the agents stepped out into the hall to give him a minute alone with his son.

  “I can hardly explain it,” said Harry. “It was painful enough to hear you were held at gunpoint somewhere in Havana. But when Andie told me she was pregnant, all I could think of was you growing up without your mother. The thought of your child coming into this world without a father was . . .”

  Harry stopped, unable to finish.

  “It’s okay,” said Jack. “It’s all okay now.”

  Harry took a breath, composing himself as he took a seat at the table. Jack sat across from him.

  “Does the FBI have any leads on who did it?” asked Harry.

  “They’re not telling me anything.”

  “What?”

  “I’m getting the line that information barriers are a necessary part of the investigation.”

  “That’s true to a point. I agreed to keep the kidnapping out of the press so that we wouldn’t get five thousand bogus tips an hour from a bunch of crank callers looking for their fifteen minutes of fame. But keeping you and me in the dark was not part of the deal.”

  “That’s not what the FBI is telling me.”

  “Well, that’s bullshit. We have a right to know.”

  “That’s how I see it,” said Jack.

  “I’ll straighten this out with Jim Murphy right now.”

  Harry had the chi
ef of staff on speed dial, and Murphy took the call immediately. For the first two minutes, Harry did all the talking. It made Jack smile to himself to see his old man get his back up and fight for his son, laying out the “information” problem in blunt terms. The Swyteck family ties had been up and down over the years, and at times Jack had been less than proud of the governor’s politics. Ironically, on the heels of what could have been a family tragedy, this was a high point.

  “Jim, you and I have been friends for a long time,” said Harry, “but let’s take that out of this. Someone put a gun to Jack’s head, chained him to the floor in a basement, and threatened to kill him. He has a right to know who did this to him. I’m going to put you on speaker so Jack can hear, and I’m hopeful that you will have something to say to him.”

  Harry laid the phone on the table, halfway between the two of them. Jack waited, but there was silence.

  “Go ahead,” said Harry. “We’re listening.”

  Another moment passed, and finally the chief of staff replied. “I can’t tell you who the target of the FBI investigation is. But rest assured, the demand in Jack’s ransom note is being given serious credibility.”

  “You need to do much better than that,” said Harry.

  There was a long pause. Harry leaned closer to the phone, and Jack sensed that his father was ready to play his trump card.

  “Jim, are you alone?” asked Harry.

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Good. I didn’t want to have to mention this, but maybe you’ve forgotten a certain phone conversation that you and I had about six years ago. It was right after you determined that Ohio was an even bigger swing state in the election than Florida. I’m paraphrasing, but as I recall, I was asked to state publicly that I had no idea if my name was on the short list of possible VP candidates, but even if it was offered to me, I would decline. Am I jogging your memory at all?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “You may also recall that I was more than just a good soldier who did what was asked of him. All the way up until the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, I traveled up and down the state, campaigning my heart out for the ticket. The president ended up winning Florida by, I believe, eighteen thousand votes.”